This is a global problem but all eyes are on Britain, where the #BrokenRecord campaign started by Tom Gray (a member of Merseyside indie rockers Gomez) has been forcing the pace. In April, 156 leading British musicians signed an open letter to Boris Johnson, calling for changes to the streaming system. Signatories included Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Sting, Annie Lennox, Gary Barlow, Noel Gallagher, Damon Albarn, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. In July, a cross-party DCMS select committee report on the economics of music streaming called for a “complete reset” so that artists, performers and creators are fairly rewarded. Industry forces have been lobbying hard against proposed changes but change has surely got to come – the current winner-takes-all system is turning the majority of musicians into losers.

If you read the financial pages, you might have thought there was a musical gold rush going on. Household name artists from Bob Dylan to Blondie, Take That to Fleetwood Mac were selling off their back catalogues in multi-million dollar deals to aggressively marketed song funds such as Blackstone and Hipgnosis. The latter’s founder, Merck Mercuriadis, confidently extolled his belief that future royalties would pay handsome dividends for decades to come. Songs, he proclaimed, were an asset class “better than oil or gold” because demand is impervious to economic or political upheavals. His company invested over $2 billion acquiring 100 per cent rights to tens of thousands of classic songs. But David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sounded a warning note, even as he sold his own back catalogue to Iconic Artists. “I can’t play live, and streaming stole my money,” said the veteran singer-songwriter, noting how lockdown had forced the hand of many musicians. “If we could get paid for records we would not be doing this. None of us.”

To what extent are consumers aware of the scale of the problem, I wonder. Pop music is showbusiness, a masquerade of glamour and swagger. Yet according to the UK IPO, less than half a per cent of artists on streaming services generate enough UK streams – it would take roughly a million a month – to make a sustainable living. According to charity Help Musicians, almost nine out of 10 musicians in the UK survive on less than £1,000 a month. And if you starve the artists, cut off supply lines and create a system that only suits established rights holders, where are stars of the future going to come from?